


In Dreams

by lackofpatience



Series: The Lion and the Thorn [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Abominations (Dragon Age), Blood, Blood Magic, Death, Dreams, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Infidelity, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Madness, Lyrium Withdrawal, Panic Attacks, Pregnancy, Public executions, Red Templar Cullen, Tranquility, light gore, that's about the gist of it, yes plural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:11:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 6,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7993120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackofpatience/pseuds/lackofpatience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it turns out, they can't even be together in their dreams.</p><p>OR</p><p>Horrible Mini AU Scenarios: The Story</p><p>(Cullen and Surana are cheating on their significant others.  Just a little side piece in a larger series.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Now for something completely different! This originally started out as a chapter in [Tales from the Dark End of the Street](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5696608), but I decided to do something a little different with it.
> 
> 15 very short chapters (between 250 and 500 words or so) in 15 days, while I work on the next part of my ongoing story, since I write so slow. Can I do it? LET'S FIND OUT! This is NOT necessary to following the story there, so if you're not into reading about these characters dying in horrible and sometimes graphic ways, feel free to duck out, no hard feelings!
> 
> If you don't want to read the rest of the series but just want to dip your toes into some random pointless cruelty for two weeks, all you really need to know is that Cullen and Surana are cheating on Lavellan and Alistair with each other. It's complicated.
> 
> Will update tags as I go, so keep an eye out, let's have some fun!

_This is the part Ellana hates most._

_It’s that time of night when it’s just slightly too dark in the room to make out Cullen’s features, but she can picture the grimace he wears well enough. The clenched teeth, the cruel lines marring his forehead and the corners of his mouth, the sweat on his brow, she knows all of it by now. And she hates it._

_As Inquisitor, she can hardly be described as soft, but that’s only because nobody can see her in these moments, fretting silently over the man in her bed as he wars with himself. Her heart_ bleeds _for him, and she wants nothing more in these moments than to rouse him from his terrors, remind him where he is, soothe away whatever pain she can. But unless he starts thrashing, she won’t. She’ll wait it out, knowing reluctantly that, however unsatisfying such a rest may be, his body still needs it. The bruises beneath his eyes that always ensue after the nights when it becomes unavoidable keep her at bay. Besides, the nightmares aren’t going anywhere any time soon._

_Sighing, she draws her knees up to her chest beneath the sheets as the strong, tense form beside her moans and shifts slightly, words tumbling from those perfect lips, just loud enough to be heard._

_“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”_

_So is she._


	2. Chapter 2

A young man in full plate mail stands in a drafty stone room. Others are there, too, their own duties to perform, but he doesn’t see them. Men in armour, men in robes, all acknowledge him as they shuffle about in silence, but to the young man, he’s the only person left standing in the chamber. Blood drips steadily from the sword grasped limply in his hands, forming a small, dark pool at his feet, a minor rival to the much larger one spreading out not two feet away.

She looks so much smaller in death. Not that she was particularly large to begin with, but she had a presence to her that evaporated in the moments after she failed to rouse in time and her fate was decided. 

He had delayed for as long as he could.

Throat laid open and spilling crimson life onto stone the colour of eyes that would never open again, all in a few efficient bursts before her heart was pierced, halting the insistent rhythm in an instant.

Red soaks into her robes, her hair, there’s so much of it that the young man thinks she could have instead died by drowning. So much blood, and she’s so small, it couldn’t possibly all be hers.

Eventually, he regains his senses, but not his voice; the only words he can think to say are apologies, and with nobody left to give them to, he keeps all of his replies to himself.

“Well done, lad.”

_I’m sorry._

“A grisly business, but necessary.”

_I’m sorry._

“It is not ours to question the will of the Maker.”

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

“Heard there’s already one less mage under your watch. Not a bad start, Rutherford.”

“Think they’ll ask you to do the next one, too?”

“When do you think I’ll get a shot at it?”

“Just disappeared in the night like all the others, aye. But I overheard a couple of the senior healers and… they said she was with child. Bet they were all glad to be rid of that one.”

_I’m…_


	3. Chapter 3

She staggers out of the Harrowing chamber, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, and something aside from the obvious is horribly wrong, but Cullen can’t place it. She ignores him entirely, walking past his prison with halting steps, and while he shouts, waves his arms, tries to gain her attention in any way he can, he might as well be invisible for the reaction it earns him.

She’s the first one to emerge still whole, still herself, and he doesn’t understand why she won’t look at him, why what remains of his fellow templars at the far end of the hall go on the offensive at her measured approach, drawing blades and shouting warnings.

Not until she throws her arms up does he see it. A quick thing, the sort of moment that could easily be a trick of the tower’s dim lighting, a flash of… _movement_ where there should be none. Cullen blinks, shakes his head, refocuses, but it happens again, her skin almost seems to ripple for a split second and his stomach falls as his mind goes stubbornly blank, acknowledging the worst while refusing to put a name to it, unable to wrap itself fully around applying the a-word here.

_Not her. Not her, too._

Her first blow slams Ser Ajax against the far wall with a burst of unfocused force before the others close rank around her, siphoning off her magical energies and Cullen renews his attempts to make himself heard, because he’s seen her in training, he’s watched her _obsessively_ , and he knows she’s holding back. She’s fighting whatever they put in her, and he’s the only one who sees that.

She cries out only once, stumbling as a series of heavy shudders wrack her body, and why can’t anybody _hear_ him? There’s a moment where it overtakes her, and while nothing seems to change physically just yet, all humanity seems to flee for the span of a heartbeat, leaving only something else, a monster in a woman suit. 

The moment passes.

She turns.

Only then, as the sword of a _(long-dead)_ friend pierces her from behind, jutting out, black and shining from her chest and permanently halting the transformation, does she seem to notice him.

Her lips move. He can’t tell what she’s saying, but he knows that it’s for him.

He screams himself hoarse as he slams against his prison walls over and over again.


	4. Chapter 4

“P-pardon me, are you busy? Could I have a word with you?”

 

“I am quite occupied at the moment. Is the matter urgent?”

 

“Not… as such, no. B-but it will only take a moment, I promise.”

 

“Very well. Speak.”

 

“I was just… wondering how you’ve been doing. Since…”

 

“I am well. Is that all?”

 

“No. That is… th-there was something I wished to ask you about.”

 

“I will answer if I am able, though one of the enchanters will likely be able to better assist you.”

 

“No, they- they wouldn’t. Not with this, that is. It’s… do you remember who I am?”

 

“Of course. You are Ser Cullen, you have been stationed here for over a year, we have spoken many times. My memories remain intact.”

 

“Good, that’s… of course they do. That’s what I wanted to ask about, actually. Did you ever… be-before, that is, when you were… not like this, did you… have feelings for me?”

 

“I had feelings regarding most everything.”

 

“Yes, but… What _sort_ of feelings?”

 

“This is an inappropriate line of questioning. I must return to my duties.”

 

“Please! I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything, I just… I need to know. I could never ask before, and now… well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? _Please._ ”

 

“...”

 

“Neria…”

 

“I had feelings for you that, while strong, confused me. I lacked the clarity of mind to properly define them. And I no longer remember them well enough to do so now. I apologize.”

 

“Oh. That’s…”

 

“If you will excuse me. There is much to be done.”

 

“O-of course.”


	5. Chapter 5

She won’t stop looking at him. He stands apart from the rest; partially, purposefully hidden by a few of his men, but still her eyes pick him out and draw him in.

She stays proud, defiant to the end. Even on her knees in the Gallows courtyard, hands bound behind her, facing all but certain death, she keeps her back straight.

He knows better than to protest, but he tries once, anyway, a feeble suggestion that surely an individual of such high social regard warrants more than summary execution immediately upon capture. There should at least be a trial, should there not?

Meredith shuts him down quick.

“A _tolerated_ apostate warrants no such thing, not when the evidence of her crimes has yet to fully cool. We shall send our condolences to the people of Ferelden.”

A murmur of angry assent runs through the assembled ranks. Six templars, dead by a single mage’s hand, and a ready, laughing confession. She was ambushed, to be sure, but only in exposing her role in the underground.

The letter of the law in such situations is clear. Still, he had to try.

She watched him before he spoke up, and she watches him still, her features impassive, unchanging.

He doesn’t know what her expression means. He could fill a novel with all the things he can read in the storm of her eyes without ever hitting upon the real answer.

Meredith returns her attention to their captive. If anyone notices her staring at him and only him, they say nothing.

“Have you anything else to say in your defense?”

“I have nothing to say to the likes of you, templar.”

Is she talking to him?

She spits the word like a curse.

Perhaps that’s what he is.

Nods are exchanged, everyone seeming to be of one mind (since, in truth, they are) as a position is taken up behind the Fallen Hero of Ferelden.

Ryall. A decent templar, young and eager to please. Bit of a mean streak, but never needlessly cruel. He’ll enjoy this, but at least he’ll make it quick.

_It should be you._

Even pushed forward, sword at her neck, she makes the effort to hold his gaze.

It’s been years. He’s surprised she even remembers him.

He looks away at the last moment, turns his head as she loses hers, gravity proving to be the only force powerful enough to break the moment on her end.


	6. Chapter 6

They laughed about it, after. That’s the first Cullen hears of how the mission went. Laughter.

Two full weeks he spent, walking on eggshells, keeping a close eye on every group of apprentices he passed, hoping to see her again. Upset, perhaps, a little depressed at having been caught, but nevertheless back where she belongs. Safe.

Instead, the party sent to recover the lone runaway mage returns empty-handed. Laughing. Successful, but alone.

His fury scares even him.

“What do you want from us, kid, she tried to fight.”

“And so you just _left_ her back there?”

“Didn’t think we needed a trophy. Phylactory’s all the proof we need.”

“What about her- the body, did you at least burn it?”

“Covered it up well enough. Don’t worry so much, she’ll rot before the spirits can get to her. It was a five-day ride back, some damp grove in the middle of nowhere, Rutherford, we’re not going to waste time trying to gather logs for some dead elf.”

Cullen breaks the man’s face in three places and sends one of the other two to the senior healers when they try to pull him off. They don’t catch him when he runs, though.

A five-day ride, they said. Cullen makes it in three. He somehow knows the precise way to go, pursued all the while by a presence he never sees.

They lied, of course. She’s not covered at all, laying exposed to the elements, one with the forest. Not a mark on her, not a hint of death-rot (and he knows that’s not right, but what is in all this?) about her. Just frigid, lifeless flesh, all the magic that made her long gone. He kneels by her side, trees forming a chilly canopy overhead as the rains come down around them and he stifles a wail of anguish with the back of his hand.

He came here to do a job. Nothing more.

The wood does indeed prove too wet to start even a small fire with, let alone one worthy of a funeral, but there’s a convenient quarry nearby, and Cullen spends some time (either a day or an eternity, it’s difficult to tell which) hauling rocks to the grove to pile over her. He builds her a cairn, inadequate for all she could have been, but large and sturdy, the best he can offer now that it’s far too late for more.

Sighing, his muscles and bones aching far more than his nineteen summers should allow, Cullen sits himself at the base of Neria’s grave and waits for his pursuers to arrive.


	7. Chapter 7

“Knight-Commander?”

He looks up from his papers with a frown at the young mage nervously hovering in his doorway. He’s annoyed only until he recognizes him as one of the novice healers, then stands up in a rush.

“I-I’m sorry, it all happened so fast. Senior Enchanter Endra said you wanted to be informed when it was time, but…”

That’s all the Knight-Commander hears before he’s gone, out of his offices without so much as locking the door, down hallways and staircases (at least, he must do these things, because he arrives at his destination) to get to _her_ quarters.

An older woman looks over at him with the barely-disguised fright that is his due.

“I’m sorry, Ser. We did all we could, but once the sickness took hold, it consumed all. The First Enchanter is dead.”

“Get out,” he growls, low and deadly.

“But… there is much to be done, preparations to be made,” the fool stammers, bewildered by his sudden rage, and the Knight-Commander’s voice rises to a roar.

**”NOW!”**

And then they’re alone.

He crosses the room slowly, knowing he’s got all the time in the world now that it’s finally run out, to the bed in the centre of the First Enchanter’s small but comfortable apartment.

He stands over her for a moment in quiet contemplation. She looks… small, like the bed is too big for her alone. Were it not for that, and the fever-sweat still cooling on her brow, seeping back into chestnut hair only recently shot through with grey (he always thought it somewhat unjust that she fared so much better in that regard than he; the last of the gold in his locks fled decades ago), he could almost convince himself that she merely sleeps, as she has for weeks.

Almost.

Suddenly, surprising herself, he drops to his knees at her bedside, old bones creaking as loudly as his armour. It’s unseemly, for a man of his position to get worked up over the death of any mage, but he can’t help himself.

How could this happen?

He doesn’t know how to exist in a world without her in it, challenging him, infuriating him, giving him reason to _be._

Slowly, deliberately, without quite realizing what he’s doing, the Knight-Commander removes one of his gauntlets. It falls to the ground with an echoing clatter that would shock any templar to ever work under his command.

It’s just occurred to him that, in all the many years he’s known her, worked with her, ~~loved her,~~ he’s never knows the touch of her skin. Reaching out with trembling fingers, he hesitates by her cheek (too gaunt, now, beneath faded tattoos, the remnants of a youthful infatuation with the Dalish that always made him smile to think on) before dropping his hand to settle on top of her own.

No longer pulsing with the warmth of life, but not yet cold, either.

Nothing. Just… nothing.

Rather unsatisfying, all told.

The Knight-Commander can’t remember the last time he wept, but then, he can’t remember a lot of things, now.

He tightens his fingers around the First Enchanter’s, bows his head, and lets himself go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra-long edition tomorrow!


	8. Chapter 8

Cullen doesn’t know how long he lies there, slowly bleeding out. Minutes, at least, before his thoughts begin to refocus, in a time when every second is precious.

The skirmish is over by the time he comes back to himself, the red templars and wardens who summarily slaughtered his men (though not without heavy casualties themselves, he smugly notes) having moved on to the next party, the next fight. It’s only after recalling the deaths of every Inquisition soldier he saw go down (Clarissa, arm torn off before she was impaled on a broadsword; Warren, red lyrium outgrowth jutting right up through his jaw; Knight-Captain Alix, burned alive; Tig, beheaded; there were many others with him, of course, but they were set upon too quickly and Cullen’s focus was on his own fights) that he remembers the demon, rage and ruin as grasping claws evaded his blows _just_ long enough to strike fast. The rending of his own flesh, right through his armour as if it were butter, even as he took the creature down, the sudden overbearing warmth emanating from his midsection and immediately spreading everywhere, the weakness in his limbs that sent him crashing to the ground after a few last unsteady moments on his feet, watching his men die around him.

Then waking up in the aftermath. He’s at the edge of a large puddle once comprised of cool spring water, now a muddy red mess, his legs half-submerged, but he can’t feel much of anything.

The Arbor Wilds were beautiful when they got there. Maker willing, they would be again in short order. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to live with himself if the veil grew too thin from their bloodshed and spoiled the place.

Well. He won’t be living with himself no matter what. That’s not the point.

He knows that he’s dying. He can hear the distant din of continued fighting if he listens closely, so salvation won’t be arriving anywhere near soon enough for his sake. 

It’s all right. He’s done his part, Ellana and her crew made it through what remained of Corypheus’ main forces unmolested. She’ll do what she’s always done and save the day. He only wishes he could be there for her, be there to see it.

Sighing and wincing at the gurgling noise that bubbles up from his chest when he does, Cullen lets his mind wander. His eyes have grown unfocused, staring blankly through the grass at a curious patch of blue in the distance. Grey warden armour, he thinks, one of the mages, but further off from the bodies of his compatriots in possession.

Maker, but the air smells sweet. He hadn’t taken the time to notice before.

More long minutes pass. The sounds of battle grow farther still and a hint of birdsong begins to return to the area. Apropos of nothing, his eyes focus once more.

A warden. A mage. Not with the others. Separate.

It takes him far too long to piece things together, but he gets there.

“Neria…”

She wasn’t with his group, was supposed to remain as a lynchpin of their rear guard. He hadn’t seen her all day, not since the fighting began. But amidst the chaos of their long siege, beset on all sides by enemies more numerous than they expected, who’s to say where she could have ended up?

Slowly, he raises his head. There’s still no pain, so he probably shouldn’t push it, but he has to know for certain.

Hands underneath him now, lifting, straining for just a few precious inches of distance from the ground so he can look past the gently waving jungle grasses. Blessed Andraste, has he always been this blasted _heavy?_

Eventually, he sees well enough to confirm that it’s her, lying in the shade of a small copse of trees, the ground stained a deep crimson in a wide radius around her. Not moving. It had been a bit too much to hope otherwise.

Sighing heavily (and there’s that gurgling again) at this fresh tragedy, Cullen slumps back down, grateful for the rest. Still, if triumph can be raised from their sacrifice, it will all be worth it and he’ll be able to sleep peacefully.

But not yet.

More long minutes pass, surely he can’t have much time left, when he lifts himself back up to spare a long, hard look in Neria’s direction. She lies perhaps fifteen yards away (how did nobody notice her joining the fight?), slightly downhill.

He might be able to make it to her before bleeding out, he thinks. Maybe. He’s not entirely sure why he should suddenly feel the overwhelming urge to try, but he’s moving before he can question it too much.

Moving turns out to be a mistake. He first tries to push himself up onto hands and knees, but his legs simply won’t cooperate, refuse to position themselves in any way capable of supporting weight. With the option of crawling removed, he tries the next best thing and simply pulls himself along the ground with his quickly faltering upper body strength.

And _there’s_ the pain he’s been missing all this time. It rockets up from deep within his belly, radiating out to his chest, his shoulders, his groin, down to his toes that he can barely even move. It wakes him, reminds him that he’s not dead _yet_ , sets him to grinding his teeth so hard he fears they’ll break off in his mouth, and pushes him forward with renewed vigour if only so that it will stop sooner.

Even once free from the still waters he woke in, it’s slow going, every foot he manages to drag himself feeling a mile. It takes him at least a quarter of an hour to get within five feet of her, weak as a kitten and leaking life with every passing second. Who knew that he had so much in him to lose?

Five feet left to go when he stops. Not for lack of trying, but what little momentum he has ceases abruptly for reasons that he can’t figure out. The shooting pains in his gut seem to grow sharper, deeper, and he scrabbles for purchase on the ground, anything to help himself along. He’s come so _far_ to die now.

Finally, with a burst of reserve strength (certainly one of his last), he advances again, all of two inches that come with a grotesque tearing noise and a pain beyond any other. He doesn’t recognize the long, loud wail that tears itself from his throat as a sound made by a human. It’s an animal noise, agony beyond reason, beyond civilization, and perhaps everyone becomes animals in death.

He hadn’t been moving because he’d gotten stuck; a rock, embedded in the soft, fertile earth having wedged up into his wound as he made his slow trek across it. In forcing himself onward, he’s torn himself open even more. Shifting onto his side and glancing down, he has to fight back a wave of uncharacteristic nausea at the sight of a loop of slippery intestine protruding from the bloody mess of shredded armour that was his abdomen.

He groans, biting back his own natural revulsion to seeing parts of himself he was never meant to see, and flops back down onto his stomach in spite of the squelching noise it makes. He could try to disentangle himself, hold himself together, but it would be an act requiring far more precision than he thinks himself capable. Moreover, it would take too long; his blood is flowing freely now, and he can’t have more than seconds left. If that. Time enough only to make a choice.

He presses onward. 

Where once a foot counted as a victory, now mere fractions count for far more as he disembowels himself by inches just to reach the side of a woman from his far-flung past.

He’s close. So close. One more push…

Maker, the _noise_ of that one final surge, but Cullen wisely elects not to look down at the mess he’s made of his body this time. It is what it is. All that matters is he’s close enough to reach her.

The red crystals glistening in the claw marks at her throat, the graceful column of her neck laid wide open, a ruin from collar to chin, tell the story of her fate. At least it was quick. No grand, romantic push for her, though his imagination provides a vivid fabrication of what her last moments could have been like. Perhaps she turned to see him fighting as she sank to the soft grasses below and all light faded.

“Heh.”

Killed by a templar, and he by a mage. She’d have to laugh at that.

He tries to get closer, suddenly struck with the notion of holding her, just this once. Depending on how long the battle stretches, how long his love takes to end things with Corypheus once and for all, it could be long hours before they’re recovered. They could stiffen like that, arms entwined forever.

Perhaps they’d even get to share a pyre.

It’s no use, though. He’s finished, not enough blood left in his body to power even the minimal muscle use it would require to close the last of the gap between them. His heart will be the next to go.

All Cullen has time to do is reach out a hand and weakly clasp one of hers, and while he’s still wearing gloves, he fancies that he feels the warmth of her through them, anyway.

Not long dead, then.

From somewhere up above, he hears birdsong.

Perhaps, if he hurries up, he won’t have to pass through the Fade alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HALFWAY THERE!


	9. Chapter 9

Oh, so you want to hear a story of the Fifth Blight, do you? There are a lot of good ones. Did I ever finish telling you about Ferelden’s Circle of Magi, and the horrors that went on there?

Didn’t think so. I believe we left off somewhere around the horrible fleshy outgrowths on the walls and the corpses everywhere outside the Harrowing chamber before you got squeamish and begged off. You really want to try again?

Alright, fair enough. Well, you remember the deal so far, right? The Hero of Ferelden and her companions slowly picked their way through the tower full of demons and abominations until they reached the top, the sadistic Uldred’s base of operations. Now, she’d been carefully checking the bodies of every templar she came across, though she told nobody in the group exactly what — or who — she was looking for. Some were mangled so far beyond any hope of recognition, and these were the ones that always left her feeling the most uneasy, but she didn’t stop, always brushing off the concerns of her friends with a shrug and a cruel jest. “Just making sure. The more dead templars, the better, right?”

That’s how it went, on and on, right up until they reached the top of the tower. Here, one of the bodies, the one closest to the Harrowing chamber, gave her more pause then all the others before. He was young, about her age, and had clearly died in immense pain, likely tortured for days before succumbing.

She stood quietly over him for a long moment while her companions hung back, gave her some space. Eventually, she kept walking, as if she’d never been interrupted. And she stopped checking the bodies.

Before they went any further, Alistair — yes, the King, though not for a little while yet — ventured to ask her if she knew him.

“No,” she replied after a long silence. She shook her head once. “Just another dead templar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the last chapter was something of a turning point.


	10. Chapter 10

They don’t pick each other as partners; it’s purely fate that brings them face-to-face on the battlements that day.

“Surana?”

They haven’t seen each other in nearly a decade, but the recognition is instant and obvious, at least on Cullen’s end. Neria’s immediate reaction is buried deep in her mind, alongside every other genuine thought she’s had over the last few weeks, but it’s there.

“Die.”

He acquits himself admirably; the years have been kinder to him than she would have expected. He’s ready when she hurls a fireball at him in spite of his surprise at her sudden appearance, deflects with his shield and puts his back to a parapet.

“What happened to you?” he gasps, wincing against the searing heat.

What a stupid question. The same thing that happened to all of them, obviously, conned by a madman in service of darker goals than her own ever were. She can’t answer it, either way, except with a quick summoning, a spray of blood from her wrist and two of her pet fear demons springing into reality at Cullen’s perfectly-coiffed side.

What can she say? She likes what he’s done with his hair.

For what it’s worth, she really did at least _hope_ they’d been doing the right thing, and the Inquisition’s siege on Adamant is as crushing a blow to her personally as it will be to any larger forces at work.

The fight lasts longer than it should, and she’s glad. She doesn’t even know what he’s doing there, fighting on the front lines like a common soldier, and deep down, she hopes that maybe he’ll be the one to break her out of this self-imposed curse, cut her down and free her. Her Venatori handlers aren’t nearly so good at this as she herself is, and with only her physical instincts helping them along, maybe he’s got a chance.

He slays one of the demons, at least, parrying aside a barrage of elemental blows as he does so, but she catches him in a prison of magical energy, and her heart sinks with every constriction. She stops just shy of crushing his ribcage with his own armour and just watches him struggle to breathe for a long moment.

_Oh, Cullen,_ she thinks as she walks in close with sword drawn, surprising even herself by dispatching the other demon on her own. Not to help, no, but to finish him herself. She wants to scream.

“You should have been the one to save me.”

Wait. Did she say that out loud?

“Surana, don-”

She slits his throat, her blade tinged with ice, even as she frantically wonders if she has more control than she thinks, tries to command her limbs to **_stop_** for the first time in days. Too late, the dawning revelation comes just a fraction of a second too late.

_He_ came too late.

Spattered in the arterial blood of a man she once believed to be better off dead, she doesn’t participate in the rest of the battle.

She’s not sure what that means.

But she still wants to scream.


	11. Chapter 11

It’s a rather clinical affair, all told. She’s not sure what she expected; a bit more passion, perhaps? Curses and spitting and raw, angry vengeance? Some sort of smug, religious superiority? For the people killing him to at least _seem_ like they care more than the assembled masses just out for a bit of blood in the afternoon?

No matter. It’s none of her business.

They look little better than ghouls, shuffling blankly around about the gallows (separate from the capital-g Gallows they stand erected in), men taking up their positions around the haggard-looking blond bound on his knees at centre stage while an imperious female templar watches on.

Ironic, that _he_ should be the only one up there who looks truly alive. Even beaten down and filthy, shattered and unshaven, he practically glows compared to the rest of them in their pristine armours.

“Former Knight-Captain Cullen Rutherford; you have been sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against the people of Kirkwall, desertion of templar duties, and expressed support for the activities of criminal apostate blood mages,” a stern older man (who doesn’t even look like he should know how to read) announces from off a parchment, more than loud enough for even the back reaches of the crowd to hear and jeer in response. “Due to special dispensation by Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard, there will be no final appeals or defenses heard; your crimes are confirmed before the people and the eyes of the Maker. Do you have any last words?”

Cullen’s broken voice doesn’t carry nearly so well, drowned out entirely by the angry shouts of a mage-fearing public he helped create. She has to read his lips.

“I did the right thing. Too late, but I did the right thing.”

Fat lot of good it does him now.

Why did she even come here?

She stays until they fit a hood over his head, and she swears _— swears —_ that in the last moment, his eyes somehow pick her out of the crowd, widening slightly before disappearing forever from view.

She pulls her cloak down low over her face and turns to leave when they haul him to his feet and slip the noose around his neck, but those eyes somehow seem to follow her.

The crowd has grown impossibly large behind her, close and jostling and faceless, and she can’t seem to leave quickly enough. She knows the snap that reaches her ears will follow her for much longer.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hello? Cullen?”

“Oh! Um… hello. Can I help you?”

“I just heard you were in the area, wanted to come visit. I know it’s been a while. How are you feeling?”

“I’m well, thank you. I’m sorry, you say we’ve met?”

“Yes, I… We knew each a long time ago. It’s been some years.”

“Oh. Yes, of… of course, come in, sit down.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t often have time to entertain.”

“It’s no problem at all, believe me.”

“Always so much to do, and… I’m sorry, how did you say we knew each other?”

“We’re… old friends. From the tower?”

“You mean Kinloch?”

“Yes!”

“So you’re a templar, then? Don’t see many elves in the Order.”

“I’m… No. No, you don’t.”

 

 

"It's quite nice here, isn't it? Quiet."

“Wait… I do remember you.”

“Cullen?”

“You’re not a templar at all. You’re a mage. You’re my _wife.”_

“What? No!”

“Yes. An elf, and a mage, I’d know you anywhere. I’ve known you since we were young. Maker, darling, I’m so sorry, how could I have forgotten?”

“Look, that’s not…”

“Do you still have the coin?”

“I…”

“Love?”

“Yeah. Y-yes. Of course I do.”

“Then I suppose we’re both as lucky as we ever were.”

 

 

“Why aren’t you in a Circle?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re a mage. You should be in a Circle.”

“That’s not… I’m a Grey Warden, it’s all right.”

“You’re an apostate. How could I marry an apostate?”

“You didn’t, that is, you _did_ , but it wasn’t-”

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Leave, now, before I haul you in!”

“Maker, Cullen, what did I do? I-”

“Apostate! Blood mage! Toying with my mind, like always! **Guards!”**

“Shit. Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I never should have come, I-”

“Don’t you apologize to me. Get out before I run you through where you stand!”

“Oh, nurse, I… I know you said he was excitable, but I- I’m sorry, I’m going, I’m leaving. Fuck!”

 

 

“Do you… do you know who that woman was?”

“Oh, yes, ser. Everyone in Ferelden knows who _she_ is.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you alright, now? Comfortable?”

“Yes, I… Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The chant. Someone’s singing somewhere. Is there a wedding, perhaps?”


	13. Chapter 13

His eyes are wrong. That’s what strikes Neria the most, for some reason. She shouldn’t even remember his eyes well enough to recognize how wrong they are (aside from the obvious, aside from the change in colour), but it’s all she can see.

Perhaps it’s because that’s the only part of him she can seem to focus on, her eyes merely glossing over the grotesque display that is the rest _— she never witnessed the worst of what became of the templars herself, returning to the south well after the last of them had been routed, and her imagination proves stubborn, unwilling to properly fill in the gaps left by experience —_ and leaving only a vague _other_ -shaped shadow in her mind. She knows it’s all there, just past her vision, the red masses engulfing nearly half of his body, the bent spine and crooked limbs, but she can’t seem to make it _real_ aside from the jagged teeth behind twisted lips. And his eyes.

They’re hard. Mean. And far more fixated on her than the amount of pain that he must be in should possibly allow.

For a long time, she thinks him incapable of speech. Most of them can’t talk by the time they get to that point, and that’s all he is now, isn’t he? Just another one of them.

“Well, well, well. Look who decided to finally come home.” Is that where they are? His voice is rust and blood, but not nearly so wrong as his eyes, and somehow, that ends up being even worse. “You and I, we’re going to have some fun tonight.”

She tightens her grip on her sword. If her templar, her Cullen, is still man enough to talk, he’s man enough to bleed.

_Red._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I am blaming my missed two days entirely on Wunderlist being down. I use that app for so much, I'm lucky I remembered to breathe.


	14. Chapter 14

A woman (barely more than a child, really) sits alone in a small, leaking shack.

She wasn’t alone an hour ago, but she’s alone now. She hasn’t moved in all that time. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s never been alone before.

Her knees are sore, legs cramping beneath her. She’s been sitting like this all night and most of the previous day, kneeling at the side of a mouldy cot, doing something akin to praying. Maybe her prayers were partially answered; at least, for the young man, it’s all over.

She won’t let go of the hand she clutches between both of her own, for fear of it growing cold.

They both knew the lyrium would be an issue when they ran, but he was young, healthy; they figured it would be alright in time if they could just get far enough away. But the pain she dimly feels in her extremities is nothing compared to what he went through in those last few weeks, the headaches and nausea, the dizziness and cramps. The fever that finally drove them to find shelter with a farmer willing to look the other way. The fever that only broke an hour ago, taking with it every other symptom, too.

Blinking back tears (not for the first time, but probably one of the last; she doesn’t think she can stave them off much longer), she takes in his matted hair and brow still creased even with his features finally gone slack. It’s as if peace eludes him even now, and all she can do is hope that isn’t true.

She still doesn’t know what to do.

Running a hand over her belly, only now beginning to swell with new, damning, life, she threads the fingers of the other through the unresponsive ones of the young man at her side, now young forever, and waits for dawn to find them both.


	15. Epilogue

_Alistair is slow to rouse when she comes to in his arms, but his body knows the routine more than well enough to do what’s needed without him. Neria silently jerks into consciousness, and by the time he’s aware of what’s happening, his arms have already tightened around her, pinning her to his chest._

_She fights against him while proper, sleepy awareness finally comes to him and he moves, pressing her wrists into the mattress and covering her body with his own. In the dim moonlight filtering through the curtains, he can see the whites of her eyes, wide and wild while her breath comes in sudden loud gasps._

_“Breathe,” Alistair murmurs, waiting for her to actually see him in the dark and come back from wherever she’s lost. Gradually, her struggling stops, but her breathing doesn’t slow or quiet any and he stays close, bearing heavily down on her._

_“I’m here._ Breathe.”

_“Can’t… can’t…” Neria pants, but he doesn’t let up or bother saying anything else, just keeps her still and maintains his presence. They’ve both had this down to a science for years, they know what works._

_Finally, after a few long moments, she closes her eyes tight and forces herself into a single, longer breath. In response, Alistair kisses her for two long beats when she lets it out and keeps his forehead pressed to hers instead of drawing back after._

_“Breathe,” he says. And waits for her to do it again._

_After the fourth time, she returns his kiss, silent signal that she’s returned to him from her place of panic, and Alistair smiles in the dark, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. “You all right?”_

_Neria nods fervently, but when he releases his hold on her wrists, it’s only to have her wrap her arms around him and clutch herself tightly to him._

_“Which one was it?” he quietly asks, pressing a kiss to her hairline._

_“New one,” she manages, voice a little strained, and that manages to surprise him somewhat. Their nightmares are usually well-worn territory._

_“D’you want to talk about it?”_

_She shakes her head once. “No.”_

_Nodding slowly, he shifts off of her, so they’re lying side by side once again. “Do you want to get up? Morning’s not too far off and there’s plenty to do.”_

_She shakes her head twice. “No.” Then she moves, turning within the circle of his arms so he can go back to spooning her. “Go back to sleep. I'll probably stay up, just… hold me?”_

_“Always.” Alistair nods again, pulling her close and already drifting off with her blessing. “Wake me if you need anything.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, we made it! Thanks for indulging me, everyone, expect a new chapter of _Tales_ soon!


End file.
